Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu will officially launch the proposed Knowledge Mission in Visakhapatnam on Wednesday.
The Chief Minister will be in the port city on Wednesday to give away the Pratibha Awards to the students of higher education at a function to be held at the Convocation Hall in Andhra University and immediately after that he will unveil the Knowledge Mission, said HRD Minister Ganta Srinivasa Rao. According to the HRD Minister a Knowledge Committee, comprising experts from across the country and a few even from abroad, had been constituted to draft the Mission report.
“The idea is to make A.P. a knowledge State and an education hub. And hopefully, we will have admissions at the newly founded IIM, IIT, IISER and IIIT from this year,” he said. By next year, we shall have the NIT, Central University and the Tribal University ready for admission, he added.
According to him, the IIT will begin with four branches and will have an intake of 120 students, IISER will admit 75 researchers, the intake in IIIT will be 240 and IIM will begin with 50 students. Coming to primary education, Mr. Ganta Srinivasa Rao said that steps were being taken to fill up the posts of about 10,300 teachers in schools, across the 13 districts of the State. “The DSC examination notice will be announced in May and for the first time the teachers recruited will be subjected to an oath. By the next academic year, there will be no shortage of teachers in schools in the State,” he said.
The HRD Minister also pointed out that a committee has been constituted to see why the drop out rate has increased and the teacher –student ratio has hit a low.
“The normal ratio is 1:30 or 1:35, but in our State it is 1:21. To better the attendance rate, we are going on a major drive to improve the infrastructure. Our main focus is to provide toilets at all schools and we have sanctioned over 18,000 toilets to be built immediately. This apart, we will be focusing on other things such as kitchen and school building,” he pointed out.
